Everyone Thinks I Stopped Caring

Chapter 4 Sunday Dinner

Sunday dinner at the bluff was roast chicken and the good plates and Graham's father, Richard, talking about a claim from a yacht that had hit a jetty. Patricia sat across from me with her husband, a quiet man named Todd who sold boats and never finished a sentence if Patricia was in the room. Corinne sat at the end, small and pink-cheeked, which I took as a win for the magnesium she had actually received.

Halfway through the meal, Graham said, "Emma's been a little intense about Mom's vitamins."

He said it like a joke. The table did the thing tables do. Richard chuckled. Patricia smiled into her wine. Todd looked at his plate.

Corinne said, "She's been very good to me."

"Of course she has," Graham said. "Nobody's saying she hasn't. I'm just saying Mom doesn't need a pharmacy in the cabinet. Patricia's doctor actually uses this stuff. It's not like it's going to waste."

I set down my fork. Carefully.

"It is going to waste," I said. "If it's not in Corinne's cabinet, it's wasted as far as the reason I buy it. I don't buy it for Patricia's shoulder. I buy it because your mother broke her hip and I love her."

Richard's chuckle died. Patricia's smile stayed. Graham's face did the thing it did when I was being difficult in public, which was to look faintly amused, as if I were a child who had used a grown-up word.

"Emma. It's family. We share."

"We share," I said. "You take. There's a difference."

Silence. Then Patricia said, lightly, "I told you she was in a mood. She came into the shop this week."

"You went to the boutique?" Graham asked me, as if I had crossed a border.

"I did. I asked her to stop taking your mother's supplements. She told me nobody would believe a story about fish oil." I looked at Corinne. "I believe it. Do you?"

Corinne's hands were in her lap. She looked at Graham, then at Patricia, then at me. I saw the calculation. I saw the years of keeping peace in a house with crooked floors. I saw her choose, and I felt it in my ribs.

"Emma, honey. Don't make a fuss. It's just vitamins."

Just vitamins. Just a bottle. Just family.

I stood up. I folded my napkin. "Thank you for dinner, Corinne. The chicken was perfect."

Graham caught me at the door. "You're embarrassing yourself."

"I'm embarrassing you. That's different." I took my coat. "The standing order is mine. The money is mine. If you take the bag again, I will cancel it, and you can explain to your mother why the shelf is empty. You can tell her I stopped caring. Everyone will believe that. Patricia already wrote the script."

I drove home. He did not follow. I sat in the kitchen of the house we shared, which was not the house on the bluff, which was a nice two-bedroom with a calendar on the refrigerator and very little else, and I opened the notebook and wrote: Sunday. Corinne said don't make a fuss. Graham said we share. I left.

Then I called Dana at home, because I had her number from three years of Tuesdays.

"I need to change the standing order," I said. "Deliver to my address. Not the bluff. I'll take it to Corinne myself. If Graham or Patricia try to pick it up, don't give it to them."

Dana was quiet for a second. Then she said, "About time. I'll put a note on the file."